


Breaking Point

by Princex_N



Series: The Sun Rose as Red as Blood [1]
Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Autism, Autistic Chris, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Overload, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Josh Lives, M/M, Minor Character Death, Neurodiversity, Schizophrenia, Sensory Overload, Shutdowns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-21 10:50:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4826309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princex_N/pseuds/Princex_N
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You felt weird being back, initially, but the longer this night goes on, the worse you feel about it.</i>
</p><hr/>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking Point

**Author's Note:**

> Chris is my smol autistic son. Poor kid's really been through hell and back.
> 
>  

You felt weird being back, initially, but the longer this night goes on, the worse you feel about it. 

You weren't really particularly close to Hannah and Beth, if you're being honest. They were always just kind of Josh's younger sisters, but you liked them and you all got along well and you were pretty upset when they went missing. Josh was absolutely devastated, and that upset you too. 

So it was weird enough going back with just that hanging over your head, but then all of this shit started happening, and you keep catching yourself wondering if it was worth coming back at all. 

The fight in the living room is almost enough to tempt you into running. Emotionally charged situations always make you nervous, put you on edge and make your skin settle uncomfortably. Then the sounds of their voices hurts a little too. You try not to look in their direction or pay attention to what they're saying, and you kind of try to make yourself be as small as possible without drawing attention to yourself. When people fight, you're always a little worried that they'll turn on you. So you're super grateful when Josh steps in to diffuse it. 

But that's only one facet of the absolute nightmare that is the rest of the night. It just gets worse from there. 

The Ouija board and panic anxiety stress that came with it, and Josh getting pissed, thinking that you were faking all that. It hurts a little, even though you know he probably doesn't mean it, you would have thought that he would know that you would never try to pull anything like that.

Then the weird picture in the weird room in the library, and then Josh yelling and then there are all these things happening. And all you wanted was to come up to this cabin and hang out with your friends because you hadn't really gotten a good chance to do that kind of thing in a really long time, and you were excited except now you're standing in front of a room with your two best friends chained up inside and a saw about to cut through one of them. 

And you don't know how to make this decision. You're not good at making decisions, you've never  _ever_ been good at making decisions, and now you're literally making a life or death decision and you feel like you're going to throw up. The roar of the saw and Ash yelling at you, you're trying to think but all of the noises and emotions are pressing in on your ears and burrowing their way into your skull and it's making it harder. And you're trying to stay focused because you have to do  _something_ , you can't afford to meltdown right now, but you can't  _think_. 

And Josh is trying to be calm, you can tell, he's trying to help calm you down. He's talking loud so that you can hear him over the saw but he's not screaming like Ash is, but you can hear his voice shaking. 

You haven't hand flapped in public in years. You can't help yourself right now, standing in front of this lever, you wonder how long you can stay here without making a decision. But you don't think it's that easy, and you don't want to think about both of them being partially torn apart by a saw and it's awful and terrible. 

You think about Ashley, who's nice and who you think you maybe like even if you don't know what the hell to do about it. Her smile and her laugh, and the way she would look away nervously if you did something weird. But then you're thinking about Josh.

Josh who put up with your ramblings about movies, and who never said anything remotely negative about your autism, and who knew what to do when you went into sensory overloads and had meltdowns (and who later related when he started going through it too). He's the guy who helped you out in social situations and who introduced you to all of your other friends, he's like the only person you feel comfortable being you around.

"I'm sorry Ash," you say, your voice thick because you don't want to be doing this. This is wrong, you shouldn't be doing this, but you don't have a choice. But you  _know_ which way you pulled the level, you  _know_ who you chose, but the saw starts moving towards Josh anyway and Josh asks why and he asks what he did, he's screaming and you're frozen. Words locked up in your throat and muscles taut with disbelief, and Ashley looks away but you're looking and you watch. 

You hold yourself together long enough to get Ash down and help her out but once you're outside, you lose it. Matt and Emily are talking to Ash, and you just kind of drop and curl in on yourself and try to imagine that you're not here and you didn't just see that happen. Someone tries to touch you and you jerk your shoulder away, and they back off. You're not sure how much time passes, you sitting back on your haunches with your face pressed into the side of your sweater while you rock back and forth awkwardly on your feet. There are tears pouring down your face and smearing between your sweater and your cheeks, you don't like the feeling but you can't stop and there's a weird humming noise that you think might be you but you're not sure. You try to tell yourself that there's no way this is happening, that Josh is going to be fine, but you don't think that he is and it kind of hits you that Josh is _Gone_. The tears fall faster and the humming breaks until it's barely there, a whisper. Josh is gone, your best friend, your bro is gone, but the guy who set it up is still out there, still here. So you decide you have to pull yourself together, you stop moving and then you slowly get to your feet to try and avoid head rush. 

Someone mentions Sam, and you're not really sure what they're talking about because you weren't paying attention, "I think she's in the lodge," you say, and your voice is broken and ragged, and you're not sure if that's a question they wanted an answer to. But now you're worried about Sam, because where did she go when all of this was happening, was that her blood you saw on the walls earlier, is she okay?

Matt tells you to take Ashley up to the lodge, and so you do that and you're not feeling up to talking right now, so you don't ask where he and Emily are going even though you kind of want to know. Kind of want to suggest that you all stick together even though they're so emotional and volatile, but you don't say anything because you don't think that you can right now and they've never been too patient when this happens. 

So you take Ash up the trail instead and try not to think of leaving your best friend chained up in that shed and leaving his blood smeared all over the girl walking next to you. 

When she tries to thank you, like you chose to save her on purpose, you don't argue. You shut her down before she can start to talk about Josh because you don't want to talk about that or even think about it, but when she starts to panic about ghosts your skin starts to get those chills. Even after that spectacle with the Ouija board, you're not sure if you believe in ghosts. That doesn't make the feeling go away. Bad and uncomfortable, and it only gets worse the more upset she gets and the way she suggests that you just leave Sam behind. 

All of this is too much, but leaving Sam is wrong. You've had to deal with enough bullshit, but you're not going to leave  _anyone_ else behind if you can help it. Thinking about this sort of thing, leaving Sam and what happened to Hannah last year, it's getting under your skin, making you kind of irritated and angry. 

But when that guy grabs you from behind, and he's touching your arms and your head and your face and you're screaming because his touch is  _ **burning**. You want it to stop stop stop stop _

and then it does.

-

You wake up with a headache and that sucks pretty hard, but you're also groggy and distant from your body, which is good because as you remember what happened and the pain from the killer touching you, you don't want to find out if you're still caught in that stressed, hypersensitive state. 

You rock back and forth in the chair and wonder why only one of your hands is chained to the chair. You're curious, but you're not complaining, because it means that your hand is free so that you can tap gently on the tip of your ear to calm yourself down. 

It works for a bit, and then Ashley wakes up and starts to cry and scream again. You mind, but you don't blame her. You can tell that she's nervous and you can't act like you're  _not_ nervous, but your anxiety is agitated movements and Ashley's is loud shrill noises. That's not her fault. But you still kind of want her to stop. 

You don't say that though, because that would be a pretty shit thing to do. 

So instead of bitching at Ashley for being loud, you try to calm her down instead. When she starts talking about telling you things, you have a vague idea of where this is going because you've heard this dialogue before (but boy would you be embarrassed if you turn out to be wrong). Part of you wants to stop and figure out exactly how you feel about this, but mostly you're just wondering why a situation like this is the time that people seem to determine appropriate for these conversations. Although you suppose that now is as good a time as any, considering the fact that one or both of you might not make it out of here. 

You don't get very far into figuring that out before there's a metallic grinding that makes you flinch, and then there are saws on  _again_ and you have to wonder  _what_ is with the saws, but mostly you just want to cover your ears, which you can't really manage since you only have one free hand. 

The killer tells you that you have to either shoot yourself or Ashley, and Ashley starts to scream at the top of her lungs again. And now there's sound and emotions and pressure stress, and you _don't_ want to be responsible for someone else dying, you can't see another friend die, so you don't stop to think very hard before you take that gun, level it at your temple, and pull the trigger. 

-

The sound of the gun going off so close to your ear feels like it's going to fucking deafen you. You let out a grunt of pain, and then it kind of occurs to you that if you were dead like you're pretty sure you're supposed to be, then you really shouldn't be in pain or making sounds of pain at all. 

So it turns out you're not dead, which you guess is a good thing because it was such an impulsive decision (you're not sure how else you could have made a decision like this, and you decide not to think about it.)

Not being dead is a surprise, but for some reason, you don't find yourself all that surprised when the killer takes off his mask and turns out to be Josh. 

At first all you feel is relief because Josh isn't dead, he's not dead and you didn't kill him and thank  _god_. Then there's a haze of what you're fairly certain is some kind of shock, and finally, you're kind of upset. 

Then it registers that Josh is talking, "How does it feel? Do you enjoy feeling terrorized? Humiliated? I mean, panicked? All those emotions that my sisters got to feel once one year ago! On-only guess what? They didn't get to laugh it off!" 

He keeps talking, and you know that you should be paying attention but mostly you're just confused. You're not sure why you're involved in this, if this is about what happened with Hannah last year. 

Because you weren't involved with what happened with Hannah last year, you didn't know that anything was going on at all until hours after Hannah and Beth first ran off, after Sam shook you and Josh awake to go help find them. You didn't even know about the prank until days after  _that_ , when Ashley got the videos and showed them to Josh. 

You glance across the table at Ashley, who's still staring at Josh like she's in shock, and hell, maybe she is. But as you look at her, you think about what she was saying before the killer- before  _Josh_  cut her off, and then you recall all of those times you spent rambling about those horror movies, and those weird romantic subplots they always managed to slip in there. And Josh always made you choose, always gave you the opportunity to be a hero. 

It's probably weird that you're faintly touched that Josh thought all the way through this plan to set you up with Ash along with whatever revenge he was originally aiming for. 

You start paying attention to the conversation again as Mike says, "He's out of his fucking tree." And you have to hold back a wince because Josh always hated phrases like that. 

"Well he's definitely off his meds." you say, you _admit_. You knew. Josh didn't tell you, but he was never great at hiding things from you (although it turns out he was a lot better at it than you thought he was), and you noticed. But he begged you not to tell anyone, and you didn't, and you feel sick because maybe none of this would have happened if you had just told someone. 

But you think that maybe that admission just makes Mike pissed, because he growls, "You're done."

And you don't like fights, and you don't think that Josh should be anywhere near a fight right now, so you try to stop it, try to get him to understand, "Mike, he's sick." And everyone knew that, Josh was sick way before Hannah and Beth disappeared, but that just made it worse.

"Jessica's fucking  _dead_." 

You're not sure it got that worse though. 

You wonder how you, the only autistic one in the room, manages to see Josh's shock when he hears that. Mike is too angry to see it, the girl's don't see it at all, but you do. Why is it that when it's the most important, you're the only one that can see it. 

-

Josh is unconscious and you can see a bruise forming on his temple from where Mike hit him with the butt of the gun. 

You're not really sure what's going on anymore. The five of you are back in the living room of the main house, Mike hauled Josh up and Sam helped Ash, you sort of trailed along behind. When you got up there, Mike threw Josh down on the floor and you sat on the nearest couch while Sam looked at Mike's fingers (which, you notice, are missing) and checked on the bruise swelling up Ashley's face. 

You're not really sure what's going on anymore, Sam brings you your coat. You take it and give her a look you hope she interprets as grateful because you don't have enough energy to use words right now. 

You pull on the coat and it's  _heavy_ and it's nice, you press the fur in the hood against your face and try to breathe and wrap your head around what the hell is going on. You try to tune out the other noises, try to center yourself and calm down so that hopefully you can speak again and try to make sure that nothing else happens to Josh. You're not going to try and say he didn't do anything wrong, he absolutely did and you don't quite think it matters that he was off his medication, it doesn't make it okay. Josh fucked up, big time.

But Mike is pissed and he's making you a little nervous, fingers missing pacing and spitting out angry words, and you're not sure what he's going to try to do and you have to make sure nothing awful happens. 

But because you apparently have the worst luck of anyone ever today, Josh wakes up and Mike just about flies off the handle. He's yelling and Josh looks kind of panicked, and you're mostly just tired of all of this stuff happening. You stand up, a little shakily, and push yourself between Mike and Josh. "Knock it off," you rasp. It's weak, but it's there, and hopefully the stress doesn't escalate and cause you to lose it again.

"Yeah, Mike, cool your jets a little." Sam says, "We need to focus on finding the others, Emily and Matt. They're still out there somewhere."

You're relieved and grateful that you're not going to be the only one trying to intervene.

"We can't leave him here," Mike insists, gesturing angrily at Josh with the gun he still has in his hand. Josh flinches away from it, and you feel him curl his hand tightly around the bottom edge of your coat. You can't believe this is happening. "He's dangerous, we can't leave him here."

You don't know what to say, you don't know how to fix this, and while you're desperately searching for words because you know that this is a bad idea, you're just not sure how to say it, someone suggests the shed. 

You can't win in this argument, but you don't let Mike take Josh there alone. 

On the walk up there, Josh alternates between desperate and pleading and angry and antagonistic, his speech is slurring and he keeps stuttering. You wonder how confused he is and think that his thoughts  _must_ be in a goddamn disarray. You're not sure how much his medication would help at this point, you wonder if maybe you should go find it for him, if he still has it. 

"What happened with Jess, Mike?" Josh asks. 

"You know what happened." Mike says, but you don't think he sounds so sure anymore. 

"No... No... I don't..." Josh insists, "I got a problem, Mike... I don't remember killing Jess."

Mike swears, you're mostly confused. Josh hasn't had a problem remembering anything else that happened tonight. Sure, he forgets things sometimes, but it's not like he's ever lost entire chunks of time. 

And when would Josh have had time to go find Jess anyway?

The commentary Josh throws in after this revelation probably doesn't help his case, though. The way that Mike reacts is testimony of that. You don't really think that Mike would shoot someone, shoot  _Josh,_ but you're not so sure if you really know that anymore but you know that you should never point a gun at something you're not willing to shoot and you're  _not_ going to watch Josh die  _again_  tonight, or ever. 

"Did you think I was going to shoot him?" Mike demands, and you're not sure how to answer that. You're not really sure what Mike is thinking at all right now, but you're not taking any chances. You tell him as much.

You don't think that you like the idea of leaving Josh here either, actually, that's something you know. You can't think of a real reason that Mike would actually want to stick around Josh, especially if he thinks that Josh killed Jessica, but maybe that's the point. Mike wants Josh to stay here, and maybe he thinks that you would let him go. 

You would probably let him go. You don't like this. 

You leave anyway and try to swallow back the guilt and the nausea rising in your throat. 

-

You have to go back for him. You never should have left him over there, you all should have stuck together, you shouldn't have left him. You need to go back for him. 

Emily showed up and then Mike showed up, the stranger and apparently there are monsters and they're going to kill and  _eat_ everyone, and Josh is out there all on his own, tied to a fucking post, you need to go help him. 

He's trying to tell you that it's already too late, but you know that he's wrong. 

"No," you say, "No he can't be, I, w-we were just with him!"

You're not going to lose him a second goddamn time. 

"No. I'm gonna go get him." 

The others are looking at you with pity, you ignore them. You can't lose him again. You're supposed to be his best friend, and you've already killed him once, you're not going to be responsible for the second time. 

"You don't seem to understand the magnitude of this situation." the stranger tells you, trying hard to capture eye contact. 

You look over his shoulder, and think that there are a lot of situations that you don't really grasp. That's not the case here. 

"Well I'm going to get Josh, aren't I?"

Goddamn right you are. 

-

Or maybe not. Josh is already gone, and you hope hope hope that maybe he got out on his own. He has to have gotten out on his own because even though he's not all the way in reality right now, Josh is smart and he knows how to handle himself. 

You tell yourself this, repeating it softly under your breath, and you try very  _very_ hard not to look at the weird stain under your feet. 

You're not sure how the supposed wendigo expert manages to get himself killed so fucking quickly. But you know that it's gross and it's horrible and there's  _another_ death branded on the back of your eyelids, and every moment after that is a current of awful. 

Adrenaline is making your chest tight and your heart beat uncomfortably while your skin starts to sting under your jacket. Every time the shotgun goes off it jolts your heart and makes you feel like you've stopped breathing. Everything is sharpened and louder than usual, the sound of snow crunching under your feet, the monster screeching, the wind in the trees and in your ears. You try to focus on just aiming and shooting and not dying because you can't save the others if you're dead, but every time the wendigo gets close you can  _smell_ it and it smells like death and rot and blood and your stomach twists but you don't have  _time_ for this. 

You fall and hurt your leg and the later sound of the explosion so close to you makes your muscles tense up and you can't  _move_ for a terrifying second, you can't even make yourself drop the gun so that you can cover your ears or your eyes or do  _anything_. 

But you force yourself up, you make yourself go before it gets back up you don't have  _time_ for this right now, you get up and you go to the door and Ash is there waiting to open it. 

She does and there's a flurry of frantic movement where she and Mike try to slam the door and get you out of the way before that thing gets too close. You try not to think about how the only thing between you and that monster is a glass door, and instead think about how you just want all of this to be done with.

-

The others are asking questions, but your speech is slipping out of your grasp. You're forcing words out but you're so exhausted and speaking is just making things worse. You don't make any kind of attempt to look normal, your eyes are fixed on the ground because you don't even have the energy to feign eye contact anymore. You're tired physically and you're tired emotionally, too many people are dying and getting hurt and there's too much going on, you can't process any of it anymore. 

So you sit back on the counter, wrap your arms around yourself and stare at the ground while the others try to make plans, but you can't really understand what they're saying. You can hear them fine, even if there is still a ringing that's starting to get annoying, but their words aren't clicking in your head anymore, they might as well be speaking something other than English, so you don't bother trying to listen in and get a grasp on your new situation. You're staying here until dawn, that's what the plan is and that's all you have the energy for anymore. 

The counter jolts under you, and then it kind of registers that people are raising their voices, and you kind of want to open your eyes, but when you hear the gunshot and feel something spray against the side of your face, you're glad you didn't. 

You make some kind of weird noise in your throat, and you're not really sure what it was supposed to be originally. Your hands move uncertainly, because you're not sure what you want to do with them. The pressure of them wrapped around your middle is nice, but you also want to cover your ears because the others are being loud again and you're getting tired of it, and you don't want to look up you don't want to see what happened. You bury your face in your jacket and you start to rock and you're crying and you're so goddamn fucking  _tired_. 

You can't do this anymore, you don't  _want_ to do this anymore. 

There are people around you, in front of you. You don't know what's going on, you want to open your eyes but you're so afraid of what you're going to see. You manage a squint, and you can see Ash and Sam in front of you. You don't know where Emily and Mike are, you don't want to look and see who is sitting on the counter just a few feet away from you, you don't try to look. 

Someone is speaking to you, repeating the same phrase over and over and eventually you're able to understand what they're saying.

"Is it okay if I touch you?" she's asking, and being touched is one of the last things you want right now so you shake your head harshly and she says, "Okay, okay, okay, I won't, don't worry. You're okay, no one is going to touch you. Can you hear me?" You nod. "Okay bud, I know you probably don't want to, but we need to get up and we need to go, okay?"

You don't really bother explaining that that's not really how it works because for the most part, the shutdown is kind of over. It's not  _over_ , but it's over enough for you to walk, which is apparently all they're expecting of you anymore. 

So you get up on your feet, shakily, and someone offers you their hand and you take it a little hesitantly, testing out the contact before holding on more firmly. Ashley rubs her thumb against the side of your hand rhythmically, which is nice. You focus on that and not the back wall of the room. You follow Sam and Ash out of the room and don't look back at all.

-

Making it down to the mines almost seems too easy. You don't encounter anything, except maybe a few near misses with falling rocks. You're starting to wonder if maybe it was too easy when Mike bursts through the doors with a burning wendigo on top of him. 

But you even deal with that with about as much ease as you can expect. 

You're almost convinced that maybe you could manage to survive if you split up, but, it can't be a good idea. You're preparing a response in case someone else suggests that you split up, but no one does. Once you get Josh, you'll have everyone together (not everyone, not anymore, but everyone that's been accounted for) and you can leave. Get off this fuck of a mountain as soon as possible.

So you and everyone else navigates the tunnels, searching for Josh because he has the key and also because you're so tired of losing him. Once, twice, you're not going to lose him a third time, once you find him you're never going to let him out of your goddamn sight. You're not going to let anyone out of your sight, you have to make sure everyone makes it.

Sam finds Hannah's journal on a ledge and you feel sick. You try really hard not to think too hard about what she's talking about, you don't want to think about it. About how horrible that was. 

It's not really that hard. You're burned out, all of the stress and panic and meltdowns and shutdowns, you don't think you've ever had a day as bad as this one. And now with the feeling of chilled, damp clothes, you feel like you're going to drop like a puppet once you get out of the mines. You tell yourself that you just need to have enough energy to get out of the mines, and then it's whatever. You have to get everyone out of the mines and into the cable car, and then after that, you can take a nap, take a break. You really need one. 

You find Jess and Matt, and the flamethrower guy. You try not to look because you're tired of seeing your friends dead, but you can smell it. When Mike throws up, you can kind of smell that too. You only manage to choke back your own sickness because you hear Josh, crying. 

"No.. no no no... I don't... I don't take orders from you..." He sounds scared and you know that he's terrified and so you have to go help him. "I don't take orders from you, you can't-you can't tell me what to do. You can't tell me what to do anymore!!" 

It's been a while since you've had to do this. When you get close, you can tell that he can't see you. 

"Josh," you say, keeping out of his space, but your voice sounds hoarse and strangled and you don't think he would be able to hear you even if he wasn't hallucinating hard right now. You clear your throat even though you know that's not the problem. You call his name again. 

The mind-numbing exhaustion is back, but this is Josh and you have to help him, so you force his name out again, stepping forward a bit and touching his shoulder cautiously. 

He flinches wildly, head snapping in your direction and crying out in fear and confusion, but you rasp out his name and he stops. 

"Chris?" he whispers, like he's not sure and he's afraid to speak too loudly. 

You nod and he springs at you, wrapping his arms around you in a desperate hug. He realizes that he's touching you, and tries to pull back, but you tighten your grip on him until he stops trying to get away.

"They're looking at me." Josh whispers finally, burying his face in your neck and you try to keep still and hide the fact that it's an unpleasant feeling at the moment.

"Who is, Josh?" Sam asks carefully, she's hovering a few inches away from the two of you, not touching.

"Hannah and, and Beth." 

Sam flinches and Ash's hands come up and cover her mouth, you ignore the gross feeling under your skin and press him tighter until the pressure of him against you makes it start to go away. 

"It's okay." you murmur, "We're gonna get you out of here, bro."

"Please." he replies, and off you go. 

Josh is shaking, which doesn't surprise you because it's cold as hell down here and he's wearing a shirt and overalls, so you pull off your coat and drape it over his shoulders. You still have your sweater, and you don't mind the cold as much anyway. 

Sam gets Josh to give her the key, but after that he stays pressed to your side and keeps looking nervously over his shoulder. You know that you need to try and talk him out of it, but you feel like most of your energy is going to just keeping the two of you up, so you'll do it later. 

"See that over there?" Sam says, sounding more self assured than she has since you got down here, "That means there's a direct way out. C'mon." 

Looking up at the way she's indicating, you don't feel anything but despair. There's no goddamn way that you're all going to be able to get up that way, but you don't think that going back is a good idea either and you can't split up again anyway. You're fucked. Stuck between a rock and a hard place. 

"I can make it up there," Sam says, and then she glances over at you and Josh, "Mike, you can take them back the way we came..."

"No!" Ashley says, "No I don't want to split up again, we-we can make it up, we just have to help them. Please I don't think it's safe, please."

It's definitely a struggle. 

Sam gets up on the ledge first, then Ashley. Josh is still plastered to your side, but the adrenaline rush is back and pushing back the exhaustion and you manage to convince him to go up next. It's a group effort to get Mike up, but somehow you manage it without anyone slipping off the ledge again or falling and breaking anything. 

The rest of the climb is harder, Sam goes first and talks the rest of you through it the best she can, but Josh keeps slipping off rocks and Mike's hand means that he doesn't get the best grip, which means that he's not faring that much better. You're pretty sure that the only reason you all make it up is an accumulation of all the good luck that you've missed out on since the start of this trip. That's pretty much the only explanation you can come up with. 

The rest of the journey is silent. You're all too wary anxious paranoid to risk being loud, and it doesn't feel like there's any words to say anyway. Too many bad decisions, too many dead friends. Hannah, Beth, Jessica, Matt, Emily. Half of your group is gone. Left behind in the direction where you can still hear the screeching of pissed off wendigos, waiting around in a house that no one is going back to. 

You realize that your luck from earlier has run out when the cable car station is just ahead of you, and there's the emaciated form of a wendigo between you and it. 

Everybody freezes. Your breath is caught in your throat, but Josh's is pouring out in a rush of panicked whispers. On your other side, Ashley is shaking, and you wonder if that's enough movement to catch the wendigo's eye. You hope to god that it isn't. 

 _I can't lose another one I can't lose another one I can't lose another one_. 

The monster screeches and scuttles forward, you think your heart is going to stop. There's no where to go from here, there's not a single thing in between you and that monster and the only shelter anywhere near here is the cable car station that is  _behind_  it. You've never been particularly good at holding still, it's just really not something you were meant to do. Now you could kill yourself and your entire remaining group of friends if you make even the slightest movement. This is a goddamn awful situation. 

It moves forward again, and Josh lets out a soft noise of terror. You're not sure if anyone told him about the wendigo not being able to see anything but movement, but he seems pretty frozen anyway. The wendigo screams again, and looks intently around, waiting for something to startle. 

You think you might pass out from oxygen deprivation. 

It lets out another screech, and then it darts off, into the woods. There's a moment where nobody moves, your muscles still locked in a frozen position despite your now clear path. 

Sam is the one who moves first, taking a cautious step forward, and then you're all sprinting. Something screeches behind you, but you're already running and you're so close. For a moment, you panic briefly because in this kind of scene in movies, someone always makes a stupid mistake, like dropping the key. But Sam doesn't drop the key because she's better than that and also this isn't a movie. (You almost wish it was a movie. If it was a movie, then it wouldn't be real)

But now you're inside and the door is locked again and this building doesn't have any windows so you've  _made_ it, the only thing left now is to wait for the cable car to get back and then you can  _leave_ and that's _it_. You start to laugh vaguely hysterically, and in direct contrast to you, Ashley starts to cry. Sam rushes to hug her. Josh looks like he's pulled himself together just in time to be confused at the emotions surrounding him, and you sympathize with that.

But you made it, and the five of you are still alive, and that's the only thing you can focus on at the moment. You made it out  _alive_.

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you who may not know, Schizophrenia can cause sensory overload. 
> 
> Because I follow the plot of the game so closely, I'm a little worried that maybe this is kind of boring. But I love Autistic Chris so much that I'm posting it anyway. Who gives a fuck. (not me) In fact, I'm probably going to end up writing more.
> 
>  
> 
> [My Tumblr](http://www.princex-n.tumblr.com)


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